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" Excepting this unpleasantness, our stay in Melbourne was one round of pleasure and honors. We were given free rides on the railroads to any point. From commander down to grayback, all had their free passes. The wealthiest club in Melbourne elected us hon- orary members. Barry Sullivan, then playing Othello, gave us an especial night, when, with true British gusto, the flaring bills read: 1 Under the distinguished patronage of the officers of the Confederate Steamship Shenandoah.' There we looked down upon an audito- rium packed to suffocation as we sat in the royal box. One hundred miles away, at Ballarat, a red-letter day wa<> set apart for our recep- tion. Only seven of us could attend. The entire town came out to greet us, and across the main street on a triumphal arch of flowers were the letters in garland: ' Welcome to Ballarat.'
VISITORS.
" At length the ship came off the ways, and two days were given to receive visitors, during which time thousands availed themselves of the opportunity. At length, on the 28th of February, we put to sea, with our full complement of men, and on the ist of April, entered the harbor of Ascension Island. Here, in this little, almost land- locked harbor, were four whalers, and after the bare-legged king of the island had condescended to say where he wished them sunk, so as not to destroy good anchorage in his harbor, we set fire and scuttled the fleet. Great events were going on then at home, but we were oblivious of their occurrence. After staying at Ascension Island eleven days, we hove our anchor, and started for the coast of Japan. As we neared the coast, thousands of robins came on deck, and, falling exhausted from the rigging, were picked up in buckets full, and proved a great change for salt horse.
OFF KAMTCHATKA.
" With prow to the north, we found ourselves on the 2yth of May in the Okhotsk sea, off the coast of Kamtchatka. Here we destroyed the ship Abigail, of New Bedford. We found ourselves one day after a fog had cleared in a field of ice. As far as the eye could range on every side extended the ice floe. It was five feet thick on our port side, while on our starboard, it rose up on a level with our sails, that, frozen from the drizzling of the night before, laid like boards across the masts. The floe was moving, and we were moved
